


Of Institution

by karanguni



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 02:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1573253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/pseuds/karanguni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rufus spread his hands. 'Is it something that I'm wearing?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Institution

**Author's Note:**

> Executed rather liberally for the prompt _Rufus and weddings_.

Cloud was looking down at his watch. Reeve could feel the man's jitteriness; it was almost time for the ceremony to start, and they should really be closing doors. A few guests were lingering outside, admiring the gardens, but Marlene was effectively herding them inside. The gifts had been put away; the guestbook lay forlornly open at its last few pages. Cloud looked like he would rather be fighting a thousand monsters than do this any longer.

'You know,' Reeve muttered under his breath to Cloud. 'It's _my_ wedding.'

'Yes,' Cloud answered, teeth gritted together. 'It's _your_ wedding, which means you can do whatever you please. No one will care about how bad _your_ speech is.'

'I could've asked Vincent to do it,' Reeve replied breezily, feeling a totally unwarranted sense of calm settle on his shoulders. He'd handled the rebuilding of entire cities; a wedding had so many fewer moving parts by comparison. 

' _No_ ,' Cloud said, pained. 'Even I'm not cruel enough to make you resort to that.'

'Is he inside?' Reeve asked, putting on a smile as he saw another car draw up. 

'He's probably hanging from the rafters,' Cloud sighed. Reeve kept his eye on the now-parked car. He had a decent memory for faces, and was wondering who he had missed in the count. Who came to weddings this late, anyway? 

The back door of the car opened and the guest stepped out.

'Dear god.' Reeve vaguely noted that Cloud, too, had stopped fidgeting and was staring equally blatantly at the man making his approach. 

'I'll just,' Cloud motioned past the doors of the church, beyond which about fifteen people had noticed the sudden silence emanating from the foyer and turned to look. 'Go in and… do something, yeah?'

'Please,' Reeve said faintly. Cloud hustled Marlene and the rest in past the doors of the church then shut them, perhaps a little harder than he'd needed to. 

The final guest came to a stop in front of Reeve. Rufus spread his hands. 'Is it something that I'm wearing?'

If Reeve ignored the sardonic tone of Rufus’ voice, he might’ve imagined that the man was — not quite nervous, but out of his element. ’Perish the thought,’ Reeve muttered, regaining himself.

Rufus was, of course, not improperly attired; the man wouldn't know how to break the rules of social etiquette if he tried. It'd been drilled into his bones; Reeve had watched Rufus grow up wielding more kinds of silverware than Cloud had ever wielded types of weapons. Seeing him in formal whites, collars starched and vest searingly black — 'Are you wearing a black tie?' Reeve asked, a little numb with shock.

Rufus put a hand into his pocket, nudging the fall of his suit — _tuxedo_ , Reeve thought a little hysterically — just out of line. Reeve'd never seen the President so self-conscious. 'I could take it off,' Rufus sighed, reaching up and jerking the tie loose. 'Yes, I know it should've been a bow-tie, but — Will you just say something, Tuesti?'

Reeve covered his mouth and laughed for half a second, then regained himself with utter manfulness and leaned against the (closed, thank god for Cloud) doors. 'I didn't think you were going to come.' 

'I RSVPed like a good boy,' Rufus retorted. And he had - Reeve had opened the card himself, seen the neatly checked box. But ever since he'd begun serious work on the city after the Reunion fiasco, Rufus had rarely been seen to attend anything. His name was just a whispered question - Rufus Shinra, really reformed? No one really knew what to do with him: even if he hadn't reformed, it wasn't as though the majority of Neo-Midgar’s capital assets and aid didn't come from Shinra. You didn’t so much trust Rufus as swallow whatever he said and expect the worst.

'I saw your RSVP; I also ignored it, because your word is always gold,' Reeve nodded. He was enjoying this. He was _thoroughly_ enjoying watching Rufus Shinra sweat, even he didn't let it show on the surface. 'Tell me you didn’t dispatch a Turk or two to hover around my wedding, Rufus?'

'What kind of person do you think that,' Rufus began, then stopped. Sighed, bunched the (ten thousand gil?) tie up, tossed it into a nearby bin. 'No,' he said, wrenching the top button of his shirt open and looking much more like himself thereafter, 'I didn't. Many felicitations. You look very dashing; the boutonniere is very tasteful. I couldn't bring your gift; I doubt it'd fit under a table or look good next to the three or four kitchen stand mixers I'm sure you've received.'

'What did you get me this time?' Reeve asked, trying very hard not to sound too smug. 'Another three mako reactors to rig up?'

'That was one time, in the winter, and if we hadn't got it finished two thousand people would have been without power,' Rufus said.

'Funny thing,' Reeve said, giving Rufus an agonisingly slow once over just to watch him not squirm. 'That was the week after I'd proposed, did you know that? I spent about a month and a half directly after sleeping about 2 hours a night. In the Tower.'

Rufus shrugged. ‘I always thought you’d marry your work.’ For a moment, Reeve took genuine pity on the younger man, who _was_ married to his work; who wouldn’t know how to tell easy companionship apart from death-do-us-part frenetic loyalty if it strolled right into his part-tyrannical, part-martyred lifestyle.

'Come on,' Reeve beckoned, shrugging one shoulder towards the church. 'We should go in. You've always known how to make an entrance; Cloud will thank you for distracting everyone.'

'Best man?' Rufus asked, falling with what sounded like relieved gratefulness into the small talk.

'You know what a best man is?’ Reeve asked.

Rufus laughed.

Reeve put his hand on the door. Just before he pushed it open, he said, 'You're not as bad a man as you think you are, Rufus.'

'Aren't I?' Rufus asked, now sounding very amused. 'I am exactly who you think I am, Reeve. But it's your wedding day,' the President said; his voice was warm and so far removed from the cold chippiness of his adolescence that Reeve took pause for a moment. Rufus pushed Reeve’s hand away, brushed invisible lint from Reeve's shoulders, then gripped the handles of the door and said, 'Allow me.'

**Author's Note:**

> I'm generally always open for more [prompts](http://karanguni.tumblr.com/ask).


End file.
